The Descent

At the risk of being in the way minority, Laura and I saw The Descent today and I . . . didn't really like it. I mean, it was a neat story and all, but after an hour of a half of holding my ears and squinching really weird in my seat, I was a bit uncomfortable. Everyone and their mom knows that I hate, hate, hate jumpy scenes, and this movie was just one staccato burst after another. God, it was everything - car wrecks, flapping bats, flapping crows, creepy dudes. You name it, the director found a way to have it jump suddenly into the film.

Halfway through the movie my ears already were red and thumpy from being squeezed shut for so long, and my poor hands were cold and tingly since all the blood had drained out of them in that position (against my head). I tried to set them down every so often but then I got panicky whenever there was an extended silence.

Laura pointed out, and I agree, that the movie would have been just as good (probably better) without any freaking blind cave-dwelling pale Gollums. Up until then, it had successfully made me very paranoid and claustrophobic. There was one excellent scene where one of the women is trapped in a turning point in the middle of a very narrow tunnel, and it was the most realistic hyperventilating that I've heard in awhile. Also, after the Pale Folk arrived, it sort of turned into the kind of trashy teen horror flick where the lead girl's friends get picked off one by one and she is left to find her strength, work through her inner turmoil, and survive with naught but psychological scarring.

I also feel like it could have been done better with less gore. I don't really mean this to sound all old-persony, but seriously, blood was like, spurting everywhere. We see a compound fracture, complete with bone shards. Spurt. Someone gets clawed in the jugular. Spurt. A girl gets hooked in the neck. Spurt. Entrails are chewed. Spurt. It just got old. I think it would have been a million times scarier if it was like, pitch black and you just heard, I don't know, wet noises. After awhile, it wasn't even effective. I mean, the main character falls into a freaking pond of blood. So it kind of lost impact on me.

To wrap things up, I think that this movie had definite "scary" potential, but I don't think that guts + sudden scares = scary. It sets you on edge, maybe, but that's more of the cheap way out. It's regrettable.